Le Sandwich

THE SANDWICH

"There are some twenty books and nearly 40 years between my first book, The Sandwich which was published in 1974, and the latest. Why is it then that, when I was writing L'Enfant grec I thought so much about The Sandwich and I'm now energetically asking for it to be republished? There may be a simple explanation: they are both novels written by someone who reads novels, but the vision of literature is different in the two books. The narrator in L'Enfant grec feels affection for his childhood heroes whom he is reunited with in the Jardin du Luxembourg, while his counterpart in The Sandwich is more inclined to ridicule them. At the time I probably needed to break away from what I read in order to be able to write.
So the book is a mixture of genres: an adventure story as well as a crime story, a naturalist narrative but also a child's fable. And yet it is the very heroes I demolished who made me want to write, who helped me realise my childhood dream of becoming a great liar. Forty years later I felt I should thank them.
The two books actually demonstrate the same passion for literature and ask the same question: Is there life beyond the novel?
The Sandwich begins with this warning: 'This is the story of a man who kills his wife then eats a sandwich.' I could summarise L'Enfant grec in the same way as: 'This is the story of a man who no longer has a wife and is no longer hungry.'" V. A.


Vassilis Alexakis has written many books including Paris-Athènes, La Langue maternelle (winner of the 1995 prix Médicis), Les Mots étrangers, Ap. J.-C. (winner of the 2007 Grand Prix for a novel from the Académie Française), Le Premier Mot, and in late 2012, the critically acclaimed L'Enfant grec.

Vassilis Alexakis a publié entre autres Paris-Athènes, La Langue maternelle (prix Médicis 1995), Les Mots étrangers, Ap. J.-C. (Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française 2007) et Le Premier Mot. L’Enfant grec, son quatorzième roman, a paru en 2012.